Antibiotic resistance of a microorganism refers to the microorganism's ability to resist the effect of antimicrobial drugs that were developed to treat infections caused by microorganisms. The development of antibiotic resistance in microorganisms is an inevitable biological process. However, antibiotics must be used conservatively, accurately, and not excessively. Antibiotic usage that does not conform with these principles may accelerate the acquirement of resistance in pathogens.
The ESKAPE pathogens in particular, i.e., Enterococcus faecium Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumanii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Enterobacter species, are known to be major causes of Hospital Acquired Infections in the U.S. One major concerns is the growing antibiotic resistance of the ESKAPE pathogens.
Drug resistance mechanisms that emerge and spread globally challenge medical personnel's ability to treat common bacterial infections by reducing the effectiveness of or completely nullifying the effects of existing treatment methodologies. This inevitably leads to increased healthcare expenditure, increased length of stay at healthcare institution, and eventually leads to a higher mortality rate.
In the U.S. alone, for example, more than 2,000,000 illnesses and at least 23,000 deaths per year are attributed to antibiotic resistance developed in pathogens. These numbers increase globally, with antibiotic resistance causing over 700,000 deaths per year worldwide. If the current trend continues, the number of deaths attributed to antibiotic resistance could reach 10 million with a projected GDP loss of over 100 trillion dollars by 2050.
Antibiotic resistance not only makes diagnosing existing bacterial infections difficult but it also has subsequent effects in other realms of healthcare. For example, antibiotic resistance affects surgeries, organ transplants, caesarean sections, cancer treatment, and other medical conditions and treatments.
Existing techniques for combatting antibiotic resistance generally involve preventing the spread of antibiotic resistant organisms including strategies for controlling antibiotics consumption at the policy and management level, rather than identifying the root cause of the resistance and/or stopping its emergence.
Another strategy is to quantify a pathogen's antibiotic resistance by calculating the isolate's minimum inhibitory concentration for various antibiotics and impeding the spread of resistance by various sanitary approaches in the hospitals. Again, however, these techniques are generally only concerned with containing the dissemination of antibiotic resistant pathogens